Executive Summary

Busy Board is an AI-powered virtual receptionist platform that enables SMEs to professionally manage voice calls through WhatsApp Business Voice and traditional phone lines (SIP/PSTN) — ensuring no call ever goes unanswered. The platform delivers 24/7, multilingual (English, French, Portuguese) voice automation that integrates seamlessly with CRMs, calendars, and booking systems. Designed specifically for African SMEs, Busy Board addresses three major pain points: missed calls (lost revenue), high staffing costs, and growing customer expectations for instant, mobile-first service. With over 50 million SMEs in Africa and WhatsApp adoption above 90% in target markets (South Africa, Angola, Mozambique), the market opportunity is immense. Busy Board is first-to-market with a working prototype, signed pilot customers, and reseller partnership interest. Funding Ask: R8 million seed round for 20% equity (R48M pre-money valuation). Runway: 18–24 months, achieving breakeven at ~130 customers by Month 15. Revenue Trajectory: R7.2M (Yr1) → R30.7M (Yr2) → R84M (Yr3) with margins expanding to 60%. Busy Board is positioned to become the default AI receptionist for SMEs across Africa — a scalable SaaS with multiple exit paths (telco acquisition, CPaaS partnerships, or Series A expansion). Busy Board seeks R8 million seed funding for 20% equity (R48 m pre-money) to scale its AI receptionist platform, expand across Africa, and reach breakeven in 15 months. Funds support product, marketing, and infrastructure to secure 1,000 SMEs and 55%+ margins within 18 months. Founders: Tafadzwa – CEO: Telecoms and systems integration specialist with extensive experience in SIP/PSTN and enterprise communications. Leads overall strategy, partnerships, and customer acquisition. Kinsley – CTO: AI engineer with deep expertise in speech AI, WebRTC, and NLP, responsible for product architecture, technical roadmap, and platform innovation. Governance & Structure: Equal founder ownership (37.5% each), with 20% seed investor allocation and a 5% ESOP pool reserved for critical hires (Head of Sales, senior engineer, compliance officer). Governance includes monthly management reviews, quarterly investor reporting, and an advisory board covering telecom, SaaS, and AI ethics. The founding team combines technical depth, domain expertise, and operational discipline, giving investors confidence in execution capability and strategic scalability. Busy Board’s financial performance illustrates a strong, scalable SaaS model designed for rapid growth, predictable margins, and efficient capital utilization. The business operates on a recurring revenue model driven by monthly subscription packages (R1,899–R5,399), overage billing, DID number resale, and high-value enterprise deployments (R35,000+/month). This mix of predictable income and premium contracts ensures both stability and upside potential. At launch, the company’s average revenue per user (ARPU) is approximately R3,000, with early-stage gross margins of 40–45%, driven by AI processing and infrastructure costs. As customer acquisition scales, operating leverage and vendor diversification will expand margins to 55–60% within 18 months. Revenue projections show conservative growth: R7.2 million in Year 1, R30.7 million in Year 2, and R84 million in Year 3. Busy Board achieves breakeven at around 130 paying customers (Month 15), equivalent to R390,000 in monthly recurring revenue at 45% margin. Beyond this, profitability accelerates as fixed costs remain low and SaaS scalability allows exponential growth with minimal added expense. The model is anchored in disciplined cost control and technology efficiency. The multi-vendor AI strategy (OpenAI + HumeAI) reduces dependency and ensures steady cost savings. AI processing costs are projected to drop from R3.40/minute at launch to R2.00/minute by Month 18, achieved through lower-cost providers and caching mechanisms that reduce token usage. This contributes up to a 20-point margin improvement, boosting profitability and resilience. Customer acquisition remains efficient through partnership-led distribution with telcos, WhatsApp API resellers, and SaaS partners. This lowers CAC to around R6,000, while LTV exceeds R60,000, maintaining an LTV:CAC ratio >10:1 by Year 2. Additional efficiencies come from viral referral adoption and tiered package upgrades. Busy Board’s financial resilience is reinforced by its lean operations. Cloud-native infrastructure scales cost-effectively, and automation reduces staffing overhead. Real-time analytics, predictive billing, and churn management keep churn below 5% per quarter. In summary, Busy Board demonstrates early profitability potential and long-term scalability. With clear cost reduction, strong unit economics, and diversified revenues, it is positioned to reach sustainable cash flow within 15 months. The combination of recurring SaaS income, expanding enterprise contracts, and defensible margins offers investors a compelling balance of growth and capital efficiency—setting the stage for a high-value Series A or strategic acquisition within three years. Busy Board operates within one of the fastest-growing digital markets in Africa — the small and medium enterprise (SME) communications and automation sector. Across the continent, there are over 50 million SMEs, many of which are struggling with high operational costs, missed calls, and an increasing demand for 24/7 customer engagement. In key launch markets like South Africa, Angola, and Mozambique, WhatsApp penetration exceeds 90%, positioning the platform as the dominant communication channel for both personal and business interactions. Despite this, most SMEs lack affordable and automated solutions to manage voice interactions on WhatsApp or traditional phone lines, leading to lost revenue opportunities and poor customer experiences. Busy Board fills this gap as the first AI-powered virtual receptionist built specifically for African SMEs — delivering multilingual, plug-and-play automation across WhatsApp Business Voice and traditional PSTN/SIP systems. The market timing is exceptionally favorable. WhatsApp Business voice calling is in its early adoption phase, creating a short window for first movers to define standards, secure distribution partnerships, and capture customer loyalty before global incumbents like Twilio or Genesys enter the SME space. Current competitors either serve high-end enterprise markets or focus on text-based chat automation, leaving the SME segment underserved. Busy Board’s WhatsApp-first strategy, multilingual capability (English, French, Portuguese), and SME-friendly pricing (R1,899–R5,399 per month) create a strong market wedge that aligns with how small businesses actually operate — mobile-first, cost-conscious, and relationship-driven. The company’s initial addressable market of 15 million SMEs in its three launch countries offers vast room for expansion. Capturing even 1% of the Africa-wide SME market represents roughly 500,000 paying customers, translating to an estimated R16.6 billion in annual recurring revenue potential at a blended ARPU of R2,789. Busy Board’s business model scales easily across geographies, as WhatsApp usage and mobile-first behavior are consistent across the continent. Future growth vectors include new language modules (isiZulu, Swahili, Hausa), vertical integrations for sectors like healthcare and logistics, and enterprise partnerships with telcos and SaaS resellers offering white-labeled deployments. In addition to size and timing, macroeconomic and behavioral trends strongly favor adoption. African SMEs are digitizing rapidly, prioritizing automation, customer retention, and cost efficiency. The COVID-19 era normalized virtual interactions, while increased competition has made customer responsiveness a key differentiator. Busy Board’s solution directly addresses these shifts by combining AI-driven automation, mobile accessibility, and multilingual inclusivity. In summary, the African SME communications market is at an inflection point — vast, fragmented, and ready for disruption. Busy Board’s positioning as the first mover in WhatsApp voice AI for SMEs gives it a unique opportunity to define this emerging category, capture early market share, and scale across Africa before larger global players adapt their enterprise products for this market.